Glenn Greenwald Will Basically Dare American Authorities to Arrest Him

Following several months of insinuation that he is a criminal or
an accomplice to a crime, journalist Glenn
Greenwald told Salon's Brian Beutler that he plans
to return to the United States, essentially on a dare. "I’m going
to go back to the U.S. for many reasons, but just the f--king
principle is enough," Greenwald said. "On principle I’m going to
force the issue."

It was actually a journalist who was among the first to publicly
suggest that Greenwald should perhaps face criminal charges for
reporting on files leaked from the NSA by Edward Snowden. In
June, only weeks after the reports began, Greenwald appeared on
NBC's Meet the Press, where David Gregory asked
Greenwald: "To the extent that you have aided and abetted
Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn't you … be
charged with a crime." "I think it's pretty extraordinary,"
Greenwald replied, "that anybody who would call themselves a
journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other
journalists should be charged with felonies."

That theme, however, quickly became a central aspect of critique
from members of the government. At the end of January, Director
of National Intelligence James Clapper referred obliquely to "accomplices" to
Snowden, obviously meaning Greenwald and, possibly, other
reporters like The Washington Post's Barton
Gellman. Earlier this week, Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman
of the House Intelligence Committee, pressed FBI director James Comey on the
topic, implying that Greenwald had been "selling … access to this
material to both newspaper outlets and other places." "Mr.
Comey," Rogers asked, "to the best of your knowledge, is fencing
stolen material — is that a crime?"

The argument goes like this. Greenwald, who at first worked
for The Guardian and then left
to join a news start-up founded by eBay
founder Pierre Omidyar, leveraged his possession of the Snowden
documents to his financial advantage. Greenwald critics have
repeatedly hammered this point, questioning whether or not
Greenwald's partnership with Omidyar amounted to the sort of crime Rogers
implies.

It's hard to see the merit in the argument, any more than it's
hard to see the merit in Gregory's question. Beutler outlines
several reasons that Greenwald appears to have been isolated for
this sort of critique, while others — like NBC News itself,
which partnered with Greenwald as he likes to note — have not. Greenwald got
the ball rolling; he's long been a critic of the government; he's
partnered with news agencies around the world. And, of course, he
doesn't work for the Post or NBC. He doesn't
even live in the U.S. He lives in Brazil with his partner who,
we'll note, is familiar with the risk of international travel. In
August, he was detained for eight hours at Heathrow.

So Greenwald will force the issue for himself. At some point,
when he has a reason to do so, Greenwald will show up at an
airport in the United States and go through customs. He'll walk
through the line reserved for American citizens, because that is
what he is. And then Mike Rogers or James Clapper are welcome to
put their interpretations of the First Amendment to the test.